Fatigue reduction from a lot of vitamin C?

This is posted back in 2021 in the chronic fatigue forum by a lyme member I don’t remember seeing it here though :

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=15&m=4269225

I remember seeing some posts on vitamin C just for treating chronic Lyme but I don’t remember anything about curing fatigue type symptoms permanently.

There are so many causes for fatigue I don’t see how this can actually work for all of them. Anyway when I stumbled across it I thought To repost here to what people think/Experienced.

I took more than normal amounts of vitamin C to defend against Covid when That was first a thing,.... besides being a little rough on my stomach I don’t member it giving me any more energy.

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Now I don’t have chronic fatigue and my Lyme seems to be gone but I just naturally never really had Consistent daily long energy. Hypothyroid even while optimal on thyroid replacement hormone doesn’t cure all of that

I’ve always been a short power nap person I’ve made many posts on that too. So when I’m tired I just take a short power nap.

Post Edited (astroman) : 2/25/2023 10:55:48 AM (GMT-8)

The stress from the infections depleted my vitamin C and I got symptoms of scurvy a few times. I did supplement vitamin C, but never found any benefit to taking huge doses.

I have also taken huge doses of buffered vitamin C orally. Never noticed any obvious benefit. I have never tried the IV form. Perhaps that would help turn me from a slobbering rock to the tazmanian devil?

Probably not lol. There is a local clinic that will do 25G or 50G IV for 125$ and 150$ respectively. Maybe I'll try but I wouldn't go in with high expectations.

vitamin C is one of the main antioxidants used in the body

they are arrange in a kind of cascade with glutathione being the initial and primary one that is used to mop up the inevitable free radical production made as a by product of our energy metabolism by the mitochondria inside every cell

there is some pretty good evidence for mitochondrial dysfunction being near the root of the issue with ME/CFS
a curious think about mitochondria - is that as they become damaged ( specifically damage to the membrane that the energy potential is generated across ) they burn fuel less efficiently and produce even more free radicals

i mention this because vitamin C is one of the anti-oxidants further down the cascade that the body uses to recycle its glutathione - so a lack of vitamin c can result in not enough glutathione recycled and low glutathione and that can then precipitate a kind of stuck condition where the glutathione is all used up and cannot be recycled - leading to more free radical damage to the mitochondria and more free radicals - and so on in a loop.

when i tested my vitamin C and glutathione markers on 2 separate OAT tests about 6 months apart they were both almost zero - so that fits - and something was using up all my anti-oxidant capacity.

so conceivably - if someone had just gotten themselves into this cycle - but the initial cause ( like a dietary deficiency or infection or toxicity - or some combination of factors ) had since resolved - its possible that just high doses of vitamin c could set thier anti-oxidant system running better again and mitochondria could repair and energy levels return.

another possibility is its antimicrobial effects could have direct impact on things like the microbiome - or SIBO - such that high doses could dampen down a SIBO bloom or dysbiosis in the gut and relieve systemic symptoms. many people here have reported systemic improvements from gut treatments of various sorts - and i have often theorised that there could well be some auto-immune component of lyme and co that is driven by disturbances to the microbiome and the relationship of the immune system to those bacteria. MS is known to have an auto-immune element linked to the microbiome.

one explanation for the variable response of persons discussed here - is that different microbes differ wildly in their tolerance for vitamin C - so it could depend on whether the offending bacteria in each individual case are susceptible

another property of vitamin C not everyone appreciates is that the amount you can absorb through the gut is tightly controlled - and after doses above around 2g oral per day it levels off - with little further gain in blood levels. so effects above this dose when taken orally are likely to be mediated by events inside the gut, rather than systemically.

i tried up to 25g per day orally, titrating up over a period of a few weeks in n attempt to find "bowel tolerance" - i had herxhiemer type reactions at the higher doses - but no lasting benefit that i could discern

in general with vitamins and minerals - i think the main explanation for their often v limited if any effect is that typically our bodies work on a weakest link in the chain principle.
with many of these micronutrients - we need enough - so not getting enough definitely adds to disease states - but once we get enough - adding more doesn't bring large benefits
thus a person deficient in vitamin D may have all sorts of immune regulation issues, bone loss, mood issues etc and get significant benefit from supplementing with vitamin D - but a person who has adequate - or just reasonable sun exposure may not notice any difference from supplementing.